


dancing on the blades, you set my heart on fire

by inspectorwired



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, M/M, pretty much a relationship/character study, yuris train of thought while skating his two pieces in china
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 14:47:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8671576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inspectorwired/pseuds/inspectorwired
Summary: He feels Viktor's eyes on him as he watches him skate.





	1. eros

He's breathless, ecstatic, feeling a kind of dissonance between the flips and turns of spinning in his head and the real one, on the ice. It feels like the illusion of a motion, of a train passing through; as if, at the same time, he's unsure if he is leaping a thousand miles per hour, or stuck in place, standing still, his body cutting through cold air.

Every time Viktor's name flutters through his thoughts, it's like as if it's somehow managed to sneak its way out into the real world without permission; like in this second, the world was given a peak of his universe, not a penny for his thoughts, scattered about, and he's not entirely sure that he minds. 

His mind races through the frozen air, following his feet on ice-coated metal, his hands lifted to the ceiling, and he wouldn't care if all the eyes on the planet were on him right now, because at this moment, they are absent, nonexistent. This is for a one-man audience, the stage consisting of the two of them alone, him and the man standing outside the circle, with a coat hanging over one hand, the other one hiding his face, a shadow of a smile seeping through. 

He used to look up to him - Viktor was his hero. But now, he sees that man make the same expression when glancing at his face, the way that makes him want to giggle or melt into an ugly spot on the floor; wants to stand up straight to the whole world and yell "This is me. This is who I am, and he is standing right beside me. I am floating right on top of this cloud nine and you have every right to hate me."

He isnt a good person, he knows. Neither of them are. He's selfish and sharp, insecure but controlling and needy, always aware of it even when he seems too caught in the headlights of it all to know the effect he has on people. 

He does know. 

And a huge part of him enjoys it; as much as he hates receiving attention, he revels in being in the center of it, having eyes on him, and his eyes on one person only. 

He adores every Viktor's reaction that he gets - each little twitch, twist, smile and jerk and frown directed at him, inside the rink and out of it. Every piece of attention that sticks to him alone; he savors them, as if trying to plaster every single one onto all of his senses, memorize them completely for later use.

But at the same time, something in him is terrified; he is equally split between the two. And he isn't sure which one makes up most of the reason that he does it, again and again; it's like a sugar rush, adrenaline high, and in time he feels like he is slowly losing control.

He is learning, too, coming to terms with what he is and what he has. He's long since stopped being afraid and started wanting more of it; "Please look at me", slowly shifting into "I know that you are looking", "And damn right I made you proud."

He lifts his body upwards, arms roundly bent over, covering his neck, and he halts, disoriented and panting heavily, as the song's come to and end.

He gets out of the rink, everything still a stretched out blur of colors, voices and shapes. His feet feel heavy and stiff, as if moving too slowly and clumsily, like every time he steps off the ice.

When he meets him, Viktor looks like he's the one that won a prize.


	2. yuri on ice

   
His steps are gentle and his nerves now nothing but a low-frequent buzzing in the back of his consciousness; he's content and calmed down, burnt out after the breaking down and the ugly spilling of his guts before the man he loves most. It was sloppy and uneasy, but freeing in a sense.

He makes another swing and glides forward, his feet scratching the ice; lightly jumps then quickly bounces back, his movements liquid. He goes through the first two flips like they're nothing, and the crowd cheers.

He knows, he thinks as he does another flip, lost in his thoughts, pictures fluttering through and the pieces of phrases floating in the air, twisting of his body on ice - he _knows_ , but he is not apologizing. He isn't sorry for what he is made of. And Viktor knows it, too. After everything, he should have been aware.

That this shortness of breath doesn't come with the lack of stamina, the tightness in his chest that hasn't anything to do with not being competent; that he's fought his way against it with everything he can, because, really, what much else could he have done?

Sometimes, he feels as if saying it out loud would just be making it worse, more real, more unbearable to deal with. So he lets the worst pass inside him like a storm. But he is scared, constantly, violently; so, even then, being aware of things doesn't do any good, as at most it's more of a nuisance, a soft "I know" inside of his throat that doesn't come out. And he does; he does. But knowing doesn't do much good, and he is aware of that too.

It's yellow, ugly and nervously bright, colors the insides of his chest. It's in the hotness of his face and his shivering from inside out when the weather is not cold; the shaking turned inwards, his voice like a leaf, silence when others reach out, in not saying anything at all in fears of it showing. He ignores and shuts out, seemingly standoffish rather than scared. It's in the way his fingers move frantically over the surface of tables or his own knees, tapping away as if impatiently waiting - for what, he doesn't know.

And he knows Viktor notices; after everything it'd be impossible not to. But he chooses to act like that, carefree when he isn't, like he thinks it'll help. An "Oh, it's fine", a few choice words, and he tries to keep going through everything like he used to; with what he's learned hands-on, with an approach of "try and see if you'll blunder", always like this when it's about other people.

Of course he can't handle this, when his own emotions are muffled down and hidden, only rarely showing behind the attempts to select out the choice ones, that help the entertainment, ignoring the rest, and Yuri's own are spilling over, crashing and burning and hitting in waves.

He does things on a whim, selfishly, just because he wants to, then tries to step out of the consequences with charm, mending his own mistakes by means of a new, whole other caliber of wrong. He's never understood something that isn't like him, oftentimes not even the things that are.

For someone so smart, he's such an utter idiot, Yuri thinks.

He does a triple loop and lands perfectly, "Oh".

Though, honestly, a strange part of him never stops enjoying it. Earlier today, Viktor's faces were entirely too much; the expressions that showed him confused and lost, so vulnerable, and Yuri would've been delightfully drinking up every single one of them, if he wasn't this angry.

He does another flawless flip, barely registering, and the crowd goes wild.

He wonders what kind of faces Viktor is making now.

The next combination, he wobbles, but almost doesn't notice the fall, standing up immediately afterwards; his knees jerk upward and push him forward in his dance.

He's noticed how Viktor always hides behind things, inanimate objects, his hands, whenever he fears that he'll let emotions out on the open; the walls retreating only when he is yet again composed and ready to put on a safe face, confident in his act. But sometimes they show. He gives his all in being indecipherable, though Yuri knows better.

He wants to take his breath away, wants to make him gasp with awe, unable to speak clearly or think straight. He wants to constantly take him by surprise, directing the skips in his chest, and he knows he can do it. "Just watch me", he thinks, knowing that he does, "and don't you dare look away".

He flips and spins, spills his movements onto the solid ground; falls and rises, close to coming undone; doesn't feel his palm coated with ice fragments when he doesn't stay on his feet after the flip, "He saw" a passing thought, with adrenaline rushing into his chest.

As the song comes to a close, the audience going crazy is an intentional blur, his eyes covered by the haze, a piece of the scenery under his lowered eyelids. The reality feels smeared over his field of view, with himself at the center, lost in the motions and the loudest thoughts he has yet produced.

As the piano notes become slower, coming to a stop, Yuri, standing in the center of the circle with his arm lifted upwards, finally allows himself to gasp for air, completely out of breath.

He tastes salt on his lips.

With the cheering settling down and becoming a bit quieter, Yuri waits a few seconds before he glances around and starts moving towards the edge of the frozen podium, where he knows the exit should be.

"Where is he?" is all on his mind in that moment. He always did see things poorly, squinting through the splotched pieces of reality uncovered by glass; and after a competition, its all that and worse, blending up into one big cluster of ineligible shapes and sounds. He looks left and right, then he notices;

A shift to the left and a spot of brown fabric and hurrying steps over the wooden support, and he can almost hear it; almost feels the thumping of feet, impatient and ungraceful, mirroring his own.

Its not pretty, the way he now wobbles his clumsy, gliding steps toward the kiss and cry, speeding up by pushing forward with the teeth of the blades at his toes, unraveling over the surface. As he gets to the entrance, Yuri sees more clearly in focus, Viktor slightly panting and resting one of his hands on top of the fence.

He is slightly bent forward, his eyes still hidden by hair. He makes a strange expression and when he shoots back up it's almost gone, but Yuri is close enough to not have missed it; the only thing that lingers is a determined look, filled with resolution. Yuri can't in the slightest decipher his face.

He moves closer and leaps forward, catching Yuri mid-motion with his feet still on ice. The sheer strength of the blow of when Viktor flings himself into his arms makes him wobble even more, almost falling over.

Then he feels lips on his own and he loses all leftover attempts to remain standing that he held onto until now, losing his balance completely.

For less than a heartbeat, a millionth constituting piece or half of a moment less, it feels like the world stretched out around him; like everything stopped - the shortness of breath, the thumping in his throat, slight movement of Viktor's chest after running to meet him halfway.

For just a second, their breaths are mingled; Viktor's are warm and wet, and seem even hotter after the minutes Yuri spent breathing in the air around the rink, and it stops in a heartbeat. A part of Yuri's consciousness registers Viktor's hands behind him just before they fall, gloved softness cupping his head and the weight of Viktor's chest pressed over his own.

At the same time, he hears the rising ovations ringing in his ears, rounding them up, like a wall separating the two of them inside it; the cold surface beneath his back and the flushed mess of a man he adores laying on top, his heartbeat over Yuri's, almost tangible over layers of clothes.

Something childish in him thinks, "How many people can claim their first kiss to be surrounded by thousands of voices' cheering roars?"

Then Viktor looks down at him and smiles and he loses every train of thought he's had; it's like his whole body turned into a heartbeat.

They get up, Viktor the first one to rise and lift him by the hand, and they and step over the threshold, out of the ice and into the real world with hundreds of camera flashes going off before their faces. He can't stop smiling.

And he isn't afraid.

 

 


End file.
